Originally Posted by
travisc
Did you read the comment in it: "If your baggage is lost we make multiple attempts to contact the owner.. i think after 3 months if its not claimed then it goes into an "auction" where the employees at the airport bid on 1 cart of bags ( from 20 - 40 bags) avg price goes bout $700 - $1500 and 90% of the time the person who bought the cart set up makes $5000 +"
It certainly gives employees an incentive to not care about the safety of anyones bag. I don't know if that's just for this airport (Miama?) but I'd be shocked. It would provide a nice incentive for employees not to follow up contacting the owner correctly (or removing any id and claiming it had none). If anything, they should give them to charities to sell.
If I had it my way (which will never happen, but I can dream), I would make % lost baggage a factor in wage/bonus reviews as an incentive to improve the situation. What they have right now is an incentive to make the situation worse!
True about employee incentive, but also the way the system works, it is very difficult to ensure that something valuable reaches its rightful owner.
I was talking to an AF FA (in Bali, not on an AF flight thankfully) recently, and she was telling me how lost items need to go through so many people, the only sensible option is to pocket them. That includes stuff like duty free purchases of cosmetics and cigarettes, books, cameras even and such. Especially stuff where there's no identifiable owner, it's apparently likely to get pocketed by ground staff or the lost and found people.